Author's note: It's been a long, long time, hasn't it? I'd say it's good to be back, but then again, I also start student teaching next semester and I don't want to make any empty promises. So because I have a deep-seated hatred for the DC reboot's current handling of my darling Lois, and I also happen to like the concept behind the Smallville episode Luthor, this little fic was born after a playlist full of songs that would completely embarrass me were I tell you what they were.

I tweaked and changed a few things about this alternate Earth; while Clark Luthor was nonetheless an interesting study about what growing up Luthor is like, I was more interested in how Clark would still maintain a distinct part of his personality while wrestling with the Luthorian ideals Lionel would have taught him. I also renamed him Marcus because I feel like Clark is a distinctly Kent-like name to give him. The rest of the changes are small, and probably don't require any further explanation. Thank you in advance for your constructive feedback!

In America, the President reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.

Oscar Wilde

sic transit gloria
chapter one

The day it gets out that LuthorCorp has finalized its purchase of the Daily Planet, all of Lois Lane's journalism classmates are in distress. Many of them had pre-determined internships there, but now they can't drop them fast enough. Most of them are now headed to once "second-best" Gotham or Star City, with a few deciding that maybe even an obscure paper like Smallville's Daily Ledger is a better start than entering a Luthor takeover headfirst. Going to the Planet isn't a guarantee of journalistic excellence now; it's a suicide move, and they all nod like so many sheep. It's almost boring Lois to tears.

"Hub City's little papers may be smaller," a classmate named Vic tells her when she asks for his justification, "but at least it's not a LuthorCorp puppet. I'd rather have my freedom than nothing at all." His face is almost unreadable.

Lois is the only one who views the merger as a challenge, not an obstacle. "I could make the Planet work for me," she says, and is granted laughs and sniggers in response. There goes Lane again, some of them whisper. God, she never knows when to let up. She ignores them, reminding herself that she'll be laughing once she gets her first Pulitzer before the lot of them.

"It'd be easier to stay outside the corporation, and write damning things about them," she admits. "And maybe people like being safe. But Metropolis is where I'm going to go. I'm going to fight the beast from the inside."

"Good luck on ya, Lane!" calls a boy whose name she's never caught but who she remembers as writing boring, off-white articles. She's hopeful for a bit, but then her face falls when he adds: "Will you send me a postcard from six feet under?" The entire class laughs; Lois even sees a bit of a smile from her professor, who was supposed to defend her, who wrote the damn letter of reccommendation for her position at the Planet anyway.

She informs her classmate that he'll be lucky if he lasts in Gotham for a week, especially since she's heard the Joker's loose again, but eventually she decides to back down and refrain from telling her class the other reason she's going to Metropolis.

Even if it costs her her life, she is going to be the first journalist to interview the unexpected vigilante, the blurred shadow, the "white knight" who isn't.

The hero people call Ultraman.

The whispers about how she's going to end up dead at the bottom of the river nearby Metropolis haunt her throughout her arrangements with the Planet, and before she knows it, it's Lionel's adopted son Marcus on the other end of the line. While Lex Luthor, Marcus' brother and Lionel's trueborn son, was groomed to eventually seize control of LuthorCorp, Marcus, who has always been a meandering sort, has been installed as the head of the Daily Planet.

Some articles say Marcus' degree in journalism and his own service with the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle more than qualify him for the job, and express optimism that Marcus will be more than a puppet. Other articles insist the major in journalism was a "dabbling" into a discipline, and that the jobs he got were given as gifts from his father. Lois decides that she had best choose a side in case he asks her that kind of a question, but before she can say anything, Marcus has a few words for her.

"I understand that you attended the Kahn School of Journalism at Metropolis University," he says, papers rustling on the other end of the line. She assumes he's examining her résumé, but he's a Luthor. Those papers could say anything, do anything.

"Yes, sir," she says in a practiced, winning voice that hides her nervousness with enthusiasm, "I'm due to graduate magna cum laude in two weeks with-"

"With an emphasis in investigative journalism and a position as the main editor of your university newspaper. Yes, I'm aware, Miss Lane." She bites her lip nervously as he says her name. She's never felt this way when someone's said her name like that; why should it be any different with him? "But are you aware of the fact that nearly everyone of your graduating class who has received a job offer has turned down positions with the Planet?"

Oh, God. It's a trap, but not one she had been expecting, not one she had an answer to. She supposes the truth might be the best policy. "I heard some people in my ethics class talking," she admits, "but I just figured they were all intimidated-"

He laughs. It is not chilling, the way she expects a Luthor's laugh to be, but instead is only lined with a dark edge, a reminder of who raised him. "Now that's a word I haven't thought of yet. 'Intimidated.'" The laugh becomes a low chuckle. "Miss Lane, your reputation precedes you. I have heard enough about you to know who you are."

"And who am I?" Another trap, she realizes, but the return call from Star City she still thinks she's getting has made her brave. Her former classmates would never let her live it down. Where's Ultraman, Lane? they would say as they would force her to make their coffee. Thought we were going to hear you solved the mystery. Where's the Pulitzer? Do you come when Marcus calls? "Come here, Lane, sit, stay."

"You're not intimidated by my father's name, to borrow your word," Marcus begins, more papers rustling. "You've taken on quite a few editorials in your portfolio, not all of them conventional." She imagines him poring over her portfolio, looking at all the words that subtly damn men like his brother and his father. "But your writing is clear, concise. The kind people want to read, even if they don't read often."

"Thank you, sir," she says, honestly taken aback. She wonders if Luthors ever compliment people this much. Probably not, she thinks. It's strange, thinking of the three men in the mansion, Lionel and Alexander and Marcus, all of them tall and terrible, all of them feared and unknown.

"You said you weren't intimidated by my name," he continues, clearing his throat. "What is it that you fear then, Miss Lane?"

She purses her lips. This entire damn interview is the most excruciating thing of her life. She wonders whether Marcus realizes that most interviews involve her writing experience, what she hopes to gain from her career, the usual. But she was the one who looked for the unusual, and unusual is what she's getting.

She has her answer faster than she thought she would. "The only thing I fear is not knowing things," she admits, and it doesn't feel like a lie. "I'm terrified of the story I don't know that I don't know."

The pause goes on for longer than a minute. For a few seconds, she feels like she might die.

"Monday morning, then, 8 AM, the basement," he says briskly. She remembers how to breathe. "You'll be desk partners with Catherine Grant; I'll forward her contact information to you. And, Miss Lane?"

"Yes?"

"Welcome to the Planet."

"...thank you, sir." The phone is suddenly very heavy in her hands. "I'll see you next Monday."

After he hangs up, Lois paces her apartment for the next several hours, considering and throwing away outfit ideas, practicing her smile, and reviewing the notes she had taken about ethics and writing style and how to advance quickly through the ranks of newspapermen. But her mind keeps coming back to Marcus Luthor, to the man who has said her name in a way nobody has before, a man her father has warned her against, a man who now holds all of her potential in the palm of his hand.

She looks at pictures of him in magazines and newspapers, standing like a stoic soldier next to his brother and father. She supposes he is attractive in his own way, a Greek statue with life breathed into it, but there is a darkness in his eyes she can't ignore, something she can see even through low resolution pictures on Google.

She can't understand any of it. She's gotten what she's wanted: a chance to fight the beast, a chance to do everything she's said she wanted to do, a chance to do everything her classmates are too scared to do.

So why is it only now that she realizes she may be in over her head?